Knock-down, Drag-out

“Knock-Down, Drag-Out”

Enough is enough

We are losing the next generation.  Not just in our homes and not just in our churches or our country, but also around the world and in every segment of society. The deck is stacked against us. Pop culture, porn, drugs, gangs, the secular assault on education, the social welfare state; and on and on. The godly man and father are vanishing from our culture. Fatherlessness has become an epidemic that is leaving no social class or culture untouched. We are losing ground fast. Our adversary is well funded, well armed and has a head start. We, the Church, are the “last man standing” between the children of the world and the schemes of Satan.  What can we do?  What should we do? Protect only our own and withdraw from the world, hiding within the walls of our church? Is this “circle the wagons” strategy really a godly solution?

What if we purposed in our hearts to do something different? There is a great scene in the 1981 film, “Coward of the County,” based on a classic Kenny Rogers ballad, where Tommy, aptly nicknamed “Yellow” for his reputation for not standing up against the town bullies, finally has been pushed too far by three ruffians who have assaulted his girl.  Tommy tracks the bad guys down at their favorite bar. Amid laughter upon Tommy’s entrance, and after “one of them got up and met him halfway ‘cross the floor”, Tommy turns around, appearing to once again choose non-confrontation, when instead, “you coulda heard a pin drop when Tommy stopped and locked the door”. Fueled by “twenty years of crawlin'” that “was bottled up inside him”, Tommy engages in a relentless bar room brawl that leaves all three bad guys unconscious on the floor.

What if, instead of running from the fight for the children, we turned in the face of our enemies’ laughter, locked the door and threw down on behalf of our own children and the fatherless of the world? In Matthew 18:6, Jesus himself says, “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”  Them’s fightin words if I’ve ever heard them.

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